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Film commentator Kenneth Turan talks to Renee Montagne about yesterday's premier of The Da Vinci Code at the Cannes Film Festival. He says the movie sacrifices excitement as it strives to remain true to the book.

Smartly sloppy, Cold War Kids' "Tell Me in the Morning" exudes soulful swagger, driven by bright, shimmering guitar and handclaps. With a great hook, a catchy chorus and many changes in between, the song conjures up the giddy thrill of discovering Gang of Four or The Jam for the first time, which is no small feat.

Homer first wrote of the Trojan war in The Iliad, a story filled with enduring characters: Helen, Paris, Achilles, Hector and Odysseus, to name but a few. Author Barry Strauss revisits the classic material in a new history.

In the hip and swinging days of the 1960s, a strange contraption called the Scopitone jukebox seemed poised to be the next big thing. The machine the size of a refrigerator projected short films on a 26-inch screen that were precursors to modern music videos.

Facing competition from kids' programs like Dora the Explorer, the perennial Sesame Street has developed Abby Cadabby. She embraces her inner fairy princess, wings, wand and all. Our commentator says it's nice to see a muppet who's not afraid to be feminine.

A decade ago, Basement Jaxx couldn't get a record label interested in releasing the group's first EP. Fast forward to 2005: Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe, the producers behind the Jaxx sound, are a global phenomenon in the dance music scene.

The newest art museum in Paris is dedicated to non-European pieces, mostly from Africa and Asia. But what might have been a monument to multiculturalism faces criticism for segregating such works into a museum of "the other."

As a singer, rapper, multi-instrumentalist and producer, Aloe Blacc is a remarkably inventive experimenter, defying easy categorization on "Nascimento (Birth)," which begins as an aria and concludes as broken-beat hip-hop.

A bunch of friends from high school form a rock band, united by the dream of getting heard -- and against long odds, it happens. But then comes the rock 'n' roll nightmare: After a first flash of exposure, the band spends the next few years trying to replicate its success. This could have happened to the Walkmen, which formed when most of its members were in high school, at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C. A Hundred Miles Off, the third Walkmen CD, came out recently.

Hot Chip is clearly made up of geeky music obsessives, each far-reaching in his musical ideas. A quirky, intelligent collection of songs, the band's new album The Warning owes as much to Prince and Aphex Twin as it does to The Beach Boys, New Order and Beck.